Ross Perot on Crime

1992 & 1996 Reform Party Nominee for President

Solving welfare by work will reduce crime

Finding work-related answers to the welfare problem might produce answers to the crime problem. The highest rate of unemployment is among young males, and they also represent the group committing the most crime. It is no accident that any area of high
unemployment is also an area of high crime. That does not excuse the crime, but if responsible and caring citizens develop job alternatives to unemployment, the crime problem that plagues our nation can be substantially reduced.

Source: The Dollar Crisis, p.135
, Jul 2, 1996

Education is a strong anti-crime program

Sometimes crime and drug and alcohol are the dead ends for parents and students who have no hope, who have given up. We must give them hope.

It is of no small significance that of those in our prisons today-including local
jails-82% are high school dropouts. If we want a strong anti-crime program, we must do a better job of educating the populace, particularly in the inner cities and rural areas.

Source: The Dollar Crisis, p.132
, Jul 2, 1996

Strong supporter of death penalty

When Perot was called for jury duty in 1988, he was struck from the prospective panel by defense lawyers after expressing strong support for the death penalty. He said he thought the justice system spent too much time “looking
after criminals” instead of “law-abiding citizens,” and that if a psychiatric defense was used, he would not give it any weight since he considered that “just close to faith healing.”

Source: Citizen Perot, by Gerald Posner, p.228
, Jul 2, 1993

We have become preoccupied with the rights of the criminal

CLINTON [to Perot]: We need more police on the street. There is a crime bill which would put more police on the street, which was killed for this session by a Republican filibuster in the Senate. Thirty years ago there were 3 police officers on the
street for every crime. Today, there are 3 crimes for every police officer.

BUSH: I was not for the bill that he was talking about because it was not tough enough on the criminal.

PEROT: What it really boils down to is: we have become so
preoccupied with the rights of the criminal that we have forgotten the rights of the innocent. In our country, we have evolved to a point where we've put millions of innocent people in jail, because you go to the poor neighborhoods and they've put bars
on their windows and bars on their doors and put themselves in jail to protect the things that they acquired legitimately. Now, that's where we are. We have got to become more concerned about people who play by the rules and get the balance we require.